Annual Conference on Mental Health and Aging
A Developmental Vision of the Spiritual and Mental Health Issues in Later Life:
Implications for the Clinician
Co-sponsored by the Center for Mental Health and Aging, the Institute for Clinical Health Psychology and the Center for Psychotherapy and Spirituality at the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology; Smith College School of Social Work; Heller School for Social Policy and Management and the Lifespan Initiative on Health Aging (LIHA), Brandeis University
Friday, May 11, 2012 | 9:00 am – 4:30 pm at MSPP
Guy Maytal, MD, John McDargh, PhD, Erlene Rosowsky, PsyD, Robert L. Weber, PhD and
Reverend Angelika A. Zollfrank, presenters
This full-day conference will bring together experts in the fields of spirituality, mental health and gerontology. It will focus on the therapeutic impact of one’s spiritual life when integrated with clinical work as this relates to the aging process and mental health and illness.
- Overarching questions to be addressed include:
- What is a useful model for understanding the spiritual stages of later life?
- How might the individual’s unique spiritual history and spiritual stage guide mental health clinicians in their work with older adults?
- How might the experience of frequent and expectable challenges in later life, including end-of-life and existential issues, be shaped by one’s spirituality or religious practice?
- What is the potential clinical utility of a dialogue between a mental health and religious professional?
- What might be a useful conceptualization of psycho-spirituality for the mental health clinician?
In the morning the keynote will frame the spiritual and mental health dimensions of later life’s developmental stages. The second presentation will examine frequently occurring issues and conditions that lead the older adult to seek mental health services. The morning will conclude with interactive small and large group discussions. The afternoon will begin with a presentation on end-of-life and palliative care issues and their existential and spiritual dimensions. The second session will be a moderated discussion between a mental health clinician and hospital chaplain. Finally, a clinically useful model of psycho-spiritual integration will be conceptualized. Attendees will be encouraged to actively participate in this conference. There will be ample opportunity for creative interaction and group discussion.
Program Code: A698
6 CE Credits
Location: at MSPP, West Roxbury
$130 includes lunch
Guy Maytal, M.D., is the Psychiatric Liaison to the Palliative Care Team at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Director of the MGH Psychiatry Urgent Care Clinic, and Associate Director of Ambulatory Psychiatry at MGH. He is also an Instructor at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Maytal graduated with high honors from Harvard College and then attended the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Afterwards he trained at the MGH/McLean Adult Psychiatry Residency Training Program where he served as Chief Resident of the Consultation-Liaison Service. During residency, Dr. Maytal developed a profound interest in the psychiatric care of patients at the end of life and began working with the Pallitative Care Team. He completed further training as the Psycho-Oncology fellow at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. Dr. Maytal has published articles on the psychiatric aspects of caring for cancer patients, psychololgical and existential concerns at the end of life, and on various topics in medical psychiatry. He has interests in the psychosocial aspects of cancer, the interface of spirituality and psychiatry, and mood disorders in the medically ill.
John McDargh, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Psychology of Religion in the Department of Theology at Boston College, adjunct professor at Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology, and first director of MSPP’s Center for Psychotherapy and Spirituality. Dr. McDargh did an inter-disciplinary doctorate at Harvard University on contemporary psychoanalytic object relations theory and religious and spiritual development across the life cycle and has taught courses on the psychology of religious development and the integration of spirituality and clinical practice at Boston College for over thirty years. For eleven summers he team taught a course through Einstein Medical School’s Cape Cod Institute on “Psychotherapy and Spirituality.” He worked as a clinical post-doctoral fellow in community mental health at the Schiff Day Treatment Center of Cambridge City Hospital and held a visiting professorship at Harvard Divinity School. His scholarly work in the field won him the recognition of his colleagues in Division 36 of the American Psychological Association (the Division of the Psychology of Religion) with awarding of the annual William C. Bier award for contributions to the advancement of the psychological understanding of religion. At Boston College he was voted Distinguished Teacher of the Year three years ago by the Phi Beta Chapter of the university.
Erlene Rosowsky, Psy.D., is a licensed psychologist and past-president of Needham Psychotherapy Associates, LLC.She specializes in the assessment and treatment of emotional problems at middle-age through later life. Specific interests are personality in older age, health and aging, and the older couple. Dr. Rosowsky divides her time between clinical practice and professional and community education. She is an Assistant Clinical Professor in Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, and is affiliated with the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center – Needham Campus. She is a member of the Core Faculty of the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology and is Director of their Center for Mental Health and Aging. Dr. Rosowsky is a Fellow in the Gerontological Society of America. Dr. Rosowsky is well-published in the professional literature, and is a popular national speaker and workshop leader for both professional and lay groups. She wrote a regular column, Speaking of Aging, for the Journal of Retirement Planning and serves as Chair of the Generations editorial board.
Robert L. Weber, Ph.D., is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He teaches, supervises and consults at Massachusetts General Hospital’s Department of Psychiatry and the Center for Group Therapy. As part of the Advisory Board of the Center for Psychotherapy and Spirituality at Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology, Bob is collaborating to develop a curriculum and programs designed to introduce students and other mental health professionals to psycho-spiritual issues that emerge in psychological treatment. He is also on the Leadership Council of the Forum on Religion, Spirituality and Aging (FoRSA), a special interest group of the American Society on Aging. Bob has a longstanding interest in and focus on the integration of psychology, spirituality and aging. As a Baby Boomer himself he has been developing a program called “ContemplAgeing,” a word he coined which describes an ongoing exploration of the unique challenges and opportunities we face as we age in the light of the sacred and the spiritual dimensions of our lives.
Reverend Angelika A. Zollfrank received her Bachelor’s degree in German Language and Literature, and Master of Divinity from the University of Heidelberg, Germany. She served in a parish near Munich, Germany, and was ordained by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria. She came to the United States in 2000 and is on the roster of the New England Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). She completed her Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) residency program with The HealthCare Chaplaincy at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. She is a board certified chaplain in the Association of Professional Chaplains (APC), is endorsed for chaplaincy by the ELCA, and is nationally certified as supervisor with the Association of Clinical Pastoral Education, Inc. (ACPE). She serves on the ACPE regional accreditation committee, the national standards committee as well as on ACPE and APC certification committees. Reverend Zollfrank came to MGH in 2005 from Yale-New Haven Hospital. At MGH, her responsibilities include Clinical Pastoral Education for Healthcare Providers and advanced CPE interns as well as a summer unit for beginning students. During her tenure at MGH, she has supervised over ninety students in eighteen units of CPE. She facilitates monthly CPE alumni groups, is a member of the Optimum Care Committee, and teaches throughout Patient Care Services and hospital-wide. She is one of four faculty for the Clinical Ethics for Nurses (CERN) program and teaches regularly in AgeWise, a residency for nurses. Angelika provides direct ministry to persons on the Medical Inpatient Psychiatric Unit. Since 2011 Reverend Zollfrank has been a licensed Practitioner with the Systems-Centered Training and Research Institute (SCTRI). In 2009/10 she was awarded a Fellowship in Medical Ethics at the Harvard Medical School, Division of Ethics. She was honored with the Len Cedarleaf Award for her theological position paper granted by the ACPE Pacific Region in 2004 and in 2011 was awarded the ACPE Emerging Leader Award. Her theory papers for the ACPE certification process are published in the Journal of Supervision and Training in Ministry, Vol. 25. She also co-authored various papers and articles in the area of spirituality and health, as well as in the field of clinical pastoral education. In collaboration with Rev. Kitty Garlid she wrote an introduction to CPE in an international textbook edited by Christina Puchalski, MD to be published in 2012. Together with two colleagues, she edited Expanding the Circle – A Festschrift for Joan E. Hemenway, published in 2009.